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mind. “I’m sure you can get lost in it,” he says, indifferently. “Everything outside of the work, I mean. I just don’t have much time for it. I think it helps that all of this was all an afterthought, really. When I was around 16, I almost joined the Navy, but I thought, ‘Hey, I’ve done a bit of acting. Maybe I’ll go to acting school.’ Luckily, I got in. I got a couple of small parts and just kept going at it. [...] For the longest time, my greatest ambition was to buy my own house. I thought everything else would just be extra.”
At some point between The Near Room and his lead role as Professor Charles Xavier in the billion-dollar X-Men franchise, McAvoy was able to buy the house. So, what then? It would’ve been all too easy for him to rest of his laurels and return time and again to the blockbuster well until it ran dry. Or perhaps he could have pivoted and finally learned to rub shoulders with The Academy. But McAvoy is the first to admit that his creative choices haven’t been driven by calculated decisions, at least from a business standpoint.
If you explore his filmography, it’s hard to necessarily pin down a cohesive through line. In a tight five-year window, McAvoy followed up his performance in The Last King of Scotland (2006) with Atonement (2007), Gnomeo & Juliet (2011), and X-Men: First-Class (2011). The first film has been lauded as one of the best of his career. Gnomeo & Juliet was a smashing success in offering Shakespeare to children through a comedic lens (as evidenced by its $200-million worldwide profit on a $36-million budget). And X-Men: First-Class helped pave the way for a superhero genre in desperate need of emotional weight.
Perhaps the only commonality between the three films is that they offered McAvoy what he sought out when he signed on for Speak No Evil: a decisive pivot from what audiences had come to expect from him. It’s not that he was strategically avoiding being typecast. Rather, he simply gravitated towards whichever project allowed him to unearth new elements as an actor. The result has been an eclectic body of work that reflects his own meandering curiosity.
“I’m not sure anything has changed between then and now in terms of what excites me,” he says. “All I’ve really wanted in a project is to flex some new
muscles. Each film, I hope for the opportunity to try something. I always want to entertain an audience. But it’s also about entertaining them in new ways. Maybe the only difference is that I’ve gotten more dynamic as an actor, I like to think. I can show different qualities, different sides, not just movie-to-movie, but within one film itself. Those twists and turns can get a bit quicker. The more I do it, the more I want to keep [developing] acting muscles.”
Even so, this relentless pursuit eventually takes its toll. A few years ago, while promoting His Dark Materials — a fantasy drama television series that earned a rabid cult following through its three seasons — McAvoy hit the wall. Over the years, he’d become known for not only the diversity of his projects but their rapid succession, tallying three, sometimes four projects in a single year. Then, the pandemic hit, the final season of His Dark Materials aired, and he told The Guardian, “I need to slow down.”
It might then seem counterintuitive for him to talk about eagerly collecting new acting skills. Then again, McAvoy has rarely been one to adhere to a plan. “Oh, yeah, did I say that?” he laughs, thinking back on the quote. Has he stuck to his word? “Well, yes and no. I think I’ve slowed down in terms of public perception. I do a lot of projects for me, whether or not I think they’re going to be seen by a wide audience. I’ve done two improvised films now. Those were really more about my development as an actor. And then there are films like [Speak No Evil], where I get to test out what I’ve learned to a wider audience.” By now, it’s hard to think of a demographic that McAvoy hasn’t reached; between a rich collection of theatre work, blockbuster success, and niche indie television roles, his acting “bingo card” leaves few boxes unchecked. But for McAvoy, there’s a key distinction to be made between reaching an array of
audiences versus casting the same wide net time and again.
When Deadpool & Wolverine released its initial teaser this past February, there was universal speculation surrounding whether McAvoy would reprise his role as Professor Charles Xavier, a mantle he held for nearly a decade. In the ensuing trailer, the back of an unidentified bald head briefly panned across the
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